Sunday I received an email from the lovely Amy Strauss. It went a little something like this:

Hey Mel!
Hope you are having a great weekend, even for today’s rain.

So, I work for this local Philly ‘burb-based food company, The Town Dish, who tackles Chester County and beyond.

With the assistance of Southwest Airlines, we’ll travel to another city and back in one day, meeting a few food bloggers who are kind enough to to guide our way of eating through their town.

We are hoping for our first trip to connect the bloggers of our area with the bloggers of the newly trekked city (Tuesday we are going to Boston) — thus why I am connecting you. Being that between Philly, the burbs both my way and your way, there’s a ton of people that can be represented, but since Bathtub Brewery is unique and worth the national mention, I would love for your blog to be included in our traveling-out-of-state roundup.

Of course I said yes! What an awesome opportunity for one of our homebrews to wind up in the hands of someone else who most likely ALSO appreciates fantastic beer?

Ray was onboard from the get-go, so I selected a 12 oz bottle of our Barleywine (it’s been aging over a year now), made an impromptu label and, at the last minute, attached one of our business cards with a rubber band and staple, making it a not-quite-so ghetto tag.

Monday I passed the bottle (donning a classy brown bag) along to Amy, who then got it over to her boss Mary, who packed it along with all the other goodies. Early Tuesday morning she boarded a Southwest flight for Boston with her suitcase full of Philly-appropriate goods for a “Dish on the Fly,” where she spent the entire day running around Boston with the city’s local food bloggers who have the 411 on the food and drink scene.

Talk about friggin’ awesome.

Riding along with our Barleywine was a bottle of Summer Love and HopDevil from Victory Brewing Co. Talk about an honor to share a suitcase with their brews! The Victory beers were gifted to Harpoon Brewery, another excellent contributor to craft beer.

Courtesy of Mary of @wcdish

Our Barleywine went to Charlie Cummings, brewer of Harpoon Brewery, who is also a homebrewer (of course). Doesn’t he look so happy to have our bottle in his hand?

So, not only was this a great opportunity for Bathtub to represent Philly, but I think the heart of this project is facilitating a connection between like-minded folks across the country. Folks who care about what they eat and drink, as well as the people behind the food and drink (or in other cases, the services and products they purchase).

This is a trend that several business books have looked at, showing how people are opening their wallets, but with their values in mind. We don’t just want stuff, we want goods that have a story behind them. We want eggs from the farmer who packs each dozen in a beautiful assortment of colors to make his customer smile; we want to buy vintage cookbooks from a bookshop owner who spends her off-hours searching for treasures high and low; we want to buy jewelry from someone who created a tiny studio out of her home and makes each ring from scratch. We want a story.

The Town Dish’s “Dish on the Fly” does that. It connects bloggers and connects our stories. It also shows the country what the Philadelphia-metro area is capable of, and it’s capable of A LOT.

Homebrewing, Miscellany 1 Comment »

Here’s monthly Bathtub contributor Ryan from The Healthy Hog on what it’s like to see brew day from outside our kitchen.

Mel explains about the types of hops used in the Bee Sting Ale.

On Memorial Day, Mel and Ray were gracious enough to invite Girlfriend and I and a few others over for a Brew Day. It would function as a small pot-luck, a beer tasting, and most importantly an instructional day for wannabe brewers like myself. And as an aspiring brewer who has no clue about homebrewing, it was important for me to see everything first-hand. Anyone can read a recipe, after all, but it always helps to see what the finished product should look like. Plus, there would be free food.

As we arrived, we were immediately treated to a tasting of a few of Bathtub’s previous homebrews—most of which I’d already had. After beer was lunch; after lunch was the main attraction. It was immediately apparent Mel had prepared everything for us just-so; hops were set out in little bowls to pass around and smell, (a sickly-sweet smell with a hint of bitterness; take a whiff of your strongest double IPA and multiply that by ten), malt was passed around for tasting, the water filter and wort chiller were on display, kettles and measuring devices were set up and ready to be used. The only things missing were a chalkboard and desks.

The first misconception of mine that was shattered was that homebrewing was hard.  Yes, it is regimented: You have to get things to the correct temperature, add ingredients at the correct time, complete the steps in the proper order or your beer will taste awful.  But, it’s also as easy as that. The temperature the mixture has to be brought to isn’t a secret; you don’t have to guess it on your own. Thanks to the abundance of recipes out there, you don’t have to guess at what kind of hops to put in or which other ingredients you need. It’s just a matter of doing things right.

Mel adds filtered water to the fermeter as Ray watches for it to hit the 5 gallon point.

Perhaps the whole experience was made to seem easier by having such good instructors. Mel and Ray were not afraid to pass things around for us to smell, to touch, to taste. They not only told us what they were doing, but why they were doing it and what it meant to the beer as a whole, the opposite of which is my biggest complaint in being taught something new. You can tell me what to do all you want, but I will be so much more likely to remember what to do if you tell me why it’s done. And Mel and Ray are the perfect combination for this: Mel is like the Please Touch Museum, Ray is the science center full of facts and equations.

Keep in mind, as well: these are people who have been brewing for years. They have everything down to a science, and they’re thinking outside the box. Coming up with their own recipes, adding different ingredients—but it’s still easy. This experience definitely showed me that, even for your first time brewing, all you have to do is relax and follow directions. Boil water. Add barley. Add hops. Add ingredients. Cool. Add yeast. Let sit. Bottle. Drink. Enjoy. The end.

Photos courtesy of Amy

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Ray adds the pilsen extract as Mel stirs the wort.

Because the Bee Sting Ale was such a big hit with friends and family alike, we decided it should be one our our first true repeats (though I should note that Ray’s Ginpel recipe was based off of the Belgian tripel we brewed waaaaay back when).

And to make it a little interesting, we decided to have friends over so they could see what homebrewing was like. And it was a success!

Ryan, LeeAnne, Amy and Bob joined us for a lunch of homemade pizza, accompanied by sides from LeeAnne and cheeses from Amy. The food was so good we almost could have skipped brew day completely, though I’m pretty sure our guests wouldn’t have appreciate that. Ray and I had them check out at our setup in the “brewery” and kitchen, smell hops and taste malts. We took turns answering questions, and cajoled Ryan into stirring the pot while I added the honey towards the end of the boil.

Ray pours the cooled wort into the fermenter.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, the food, and the beer we had on hand. We sent Bob home with our copy of The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, and everyone got to take home some bottles of homebrew, with the promise that once the Bee Sting was bottled, they could collect even more.

We kept the recipe the same, with the only changes being the specific alpha acids of the hops and the seeds of paradise. In our original brewing of the Bee Sting, we added the peppery spice to the last 5 minutes of the boil, as well as making an extract with the spice and vodka. This year, after having success with the chai tea in Boris the Spider Chai Oatmeal Stout, we decided to go the tea route as well. I’m curious to see how successful it is.

31 May 2010
Bee Sting Ale
5 gallons, 60 minute boil

5.0 lbs Pilsen Light Liquid Malt Extract (60 min)
2.0 lbs Orange Blossom Honey (15 min)

Specialty Grains:
0.5 lbs Crystal Malt 15L

1.0 oz Chinook Hops [ 11.4% AA] (60 min)
1.0 oz Amarillo Hops [ 7.5% AA] (15 min)

1 tablet Whirlfloc (20 min — clarifier)

White Labs California Ale Yeast WLP001

Seeds of Paradise tea — 16 g of pulverized seeds of paradise in 8 oz filtered water, chilled overnight

4 oz corn sugar (bottling)

———

Create a yeast starter 2-3 days in advance.

Add 3 gallons of water to kettle. Heat to 155°F.

Steep grains at 155°F for 30 minutes.

Remove grains, turn off heat, add malt extract. Bring back to a boil. Add Chinook hops.

At 20 minutes, add Whirlfloc tablet.

At 15 minutes, turn off heat. Add orange blossom honey. Stir until dissolved. Return to boil. Add Amarillo hops.

Chill wort to below 70°F. Rack to fermenter and dilute to 5 gallons. Pitch yeast starter and aerate thoroughly. Allow to ferment to completion at 60-65°F.

Rack fermented beer to secondary fermenter. Add seeds of paradise tea. Age for 1 – 2 weeks.

Rack to bottling bucket. Boil corn sugar with 1 c filtered water and add to beer. Mix well.

Bottle. Age for two weeks.

Photos courtesy of the lovely Amy

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days 1 Comment »

I feel like the brown ale often gets forgotten in the melee of its darker cousins, the crazy bourbon, oaked-aged stouts and chocolate porters (not to mention conventional stouts and porters). Who wants a simple brown ale when they can get something exotic?

But the standard brown ale is a great choice for a variety of occasions. It’s a session beer. It’s more substantial than a lager. It can be as roasty or as chocolatey as the brewer wants it to be, or it can be nutty and coffee like (remember our “Nuts About Coffee” Nut Brown ale?)

We decided to give the noble brown a shot with an original recipe this time, and after a little research, I decided to model the beer after Dogfish Head’s Indian Brown Ale, though it’s probably not as hoppy, but more on the roasty side.

10 April, 2010
Extra Fancy Brown Ale
5 gallons

8 lbs Ultralight Malt Extract (60 min)

1.0 lb Crystal 60L
8 oz Chocolate Malt
2 oz Roasted Barley

1 oz Magnum Hops (60 min)
1 oz Vanguard Hops (15 min)

1 tablet Whirlfloc (20 min — clarifier)

White Labs California Ale Yeast (WLP001)

DME (bottling)

———

Create a yeast starter 2-3 days in advance.

Add 3 gallons of water to kettle. Bring to boil.

Steep grains at 155°F for 30 minutes.

Remove grains, turn off heat and add liquid malt extract. Bring to a boil. Add bittering hops.

At 20 minutes, add Whirlfloc tablet.

At 15 minutes, add remaining hops.

At end of boil, remove all hops. Chill wort to 75°F. Rack to fermenter and dilute to 5 gallons. Decant yeast starter and pitch yeast. Aerate thoroughly. Ferment at 70-75°F.

Rack fermented beer to secondary fermenter. Age for 1 – 2 weeks.

Rack to bottling bucket. Boil DME with 1 c filtered water and add to beer. Mix well.

Rack fermented beer to secondary fermenter. Age 1-2 weeks.

We’ll have our tasting notes up in a couple of weeks, but a cool thing to mention is that we shared a bottle of the Extra Fancy with a homebrewer we met on a camping trip to Keen Lake this past weekend. Jay runs the Final Gravity podcast, builds all sorts of cool homebrewing equipment, and found some interesting spice notes (like cinnamon) in our brown ale as he sipped it with us by the lantern-lit picnic table. It’s always a boon to have new people try our beer — it let’s us learn so much more.

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Homemade chai mix, just add water and BEER

It’s amazing what happens when you unclutter your home. You dig through all this stuff you’ve accumulated and you get rid of 75%, either donating stuff that still has some life in it or tossing it for good.

So what does this have to do with my chai recipe? Think about it.

I’m famous for thinking out loud on index cards, and that’s exactly what I did. Then that index got shuffled from the breakfast bar to my desk, and then, who knows where.

So will you get the original recipe? No. And neither will I — it’ll be back to the drawing board if we do this beer again. Nonetheless, I really think chai should be made to your individual preference, so grab some traditional chai spices, some tea, and put my steps to the test!

Chai is made with a black tea, like Assam. I couldn’t find that at my local Wegmans, so I decided to blend English Breakfast (this particular brand was a blend of Assam and Kenyon) with some Darjeeling, which is considered the “champagne” of tea. I used 5 bags of the Breakfast Blend and 3 of Darjeeling.

I added a ton of cinnamon (love it!), whole cloves, coriander and 2-3 star anise (all of which I cracked down a bit with my mortar and pestle), some ground ginger and allspice. I also used probably 5-8 green cardamom pods, which I gave a thorough cracking before adding them to the blend.

You need to smell your chai mix constantly. Does it smell like something you’ve had in a reputable tea or coffee shop? If so, you’re on the right track.

Once you have your mix, add COLD filtered water. Brewing it hot, like coffee, could make the chai bitter as it cools. No one wants to taste an odd, woody-bitter taste in their beer, so cold brewing it is.

After adding the water to the French press, I gave it a good stir and put it in the fridge for about 12 hours. Then I took it out, pressed and poured into a measuring cup — if the bottom of the press looks to have a bunch of dregs floating in it, avoid pouring that into the cup. Then from there you can either add it to the fermenter or directly to the bottling bucket.

Gather all your ingredients, a scale, bowl and mortar and pestle

Make sure you weigh your chai mix

Add water to the chai mix you already put into the French Press

After 12 hours, press down the plunger and voila! You have your chai extract, ready to add to 5 gallons of beer

If you need some help coming up with a recipe, check out the following for some inspiration:
Chai Tea from Simply Recipes

Chai! Recipes

Homebrewing, Miscellany Add Comment »

So, um, yeah. It’s been awhile. But never fear, we’ve been brewing and brewfesting and even TEACHING people how to brew their own! Oh, and we’re getting ready to put our condo up for sale, so how’s that for a bunch of excuses? Nevertheless, on to our fairly regularly scheduled content (or some BS like that …)

When dreaming up Boris the Spider, our Chai Oatmeal Stout, I decided that homemade chai was the way to go. The concentrate you might buy at the store (Oregon Chai and Tazo) has sugars and other stuff going on, and I wouldn’t want to play around with their powdered offerings. Instead, the best bet was to do some research and figure out the best recipe for us.

Except there isn’t just a singular chai recipe. In India, there are numerous varieties of chai hailing from all the different regions — sort of like how every Italian grandma has her own very special (and often secret) recipe for meat sauce. So that meant I had a lot of reading to do.

In the end, I winged it a little, but the test batch smelled authentic (based on what I’ve had before from various tea and coffee shops) and when brewed as a concentrate and added to milk, tasted great. Though I’m sure some Indian grandma would have a few critiques.

Check back tomorrow for the full recipe with photos and get ready to brew some chai to either toss into a homebrew, or enjoy in a comfy chair with a good book.

Homebrewing, Miscellany 1 Comment »

Eep! The IPA is almost gone! Quick! Take some notes!

Appearance: Bright, golden, crystal clear amber. Lots of fluffy, white head. Sustained, rapid effervescence.

Nose: Grapefruit, orange, tart citrus in general. Slightly dry.

Taste: Very citrusy, mostly grapefruit. Earthy and piney. Fairly bitter, buffered by a hint of caramel sweetness. Finishes bitter, in that way that begs another sip.

Mouthfeel: Light-to-medium. Crisp and dry. Barest hint of tongue-coating. A lot of CO2 bite. Foamy, foamy, and foamy.

Overall: We almost ran out of our IPA before realizing we needed to do a tasting writeup. It’s a bit addicting, see, even though a good two-thirds of our bottles turned out to be foamy gushers.

We aren’t entirely sure what happened with the carbonation, but our brother-in-law thinks some kind of bacterial contamination could be to blame. There’s supposed to be a strain that doesn’t change the flavor but does excrete a lot of CO2. That’s as good an explanation as any.

Once the assault of carbonation settles down, this is one of the best IPAs we’ve ever tasted. We love the way the subtle sweetness plays against the citrus to give an almost lemony tart sensation… which, I’m just now realizing, might actually be the result of infection. In any case, we think we succeeded in showcasing the Simcoe hop, so that’s a win.

Homebrewing, Tasting Add Comment »

Whu— Oh, hey. Hey! Hey, wow, how’s it going? Yeah, I’ve been meaning to blog, it’s just been— I’ve been so busy with… work and… stuff. Well, hey, you look like you’re doing well! Ha ha…

I’m just gonna get to talking about this beer now, yeah?

Appearance: Light-to-golden amber. Very clear. Fluffy, bone white head. Lots of effervescence.

Nose: Tart berries. Cloves. Faintly alcoholic.

Taste: A perfect mix of sweet and tart. Hop bitterness takes a back seat to the tartness. Cloves, oranges, berries. Noticeable alcohol could stand to be masked a bit more, but doesn’t detract significantly.

Mouthfeel: Light to medium body, yet somehow slightly viscous, especially as it warms up. Coats the tongue. A little bit of an alcohol sting.

Overall: Not utterly hefeweizen-like, but there is just enough clove to at least suggest that it might have been a hefe in another life, maybe one that was born in Germany but raised in Belgium. The raisins are not as overt as we would have liked, but we love the tartness from the cranberries, which is assertive without completely drowning out the orange. The dryness could also prove to make this a great gateway beer for wine aficionados.

In a word, Hefe the ORC is totallyfreakingexcellentnoseriouslyguysholycrap. It’s results like this that make brewing such a fun hobby. It’s barely the hefeweizen we advertised it to be, but that’s fine, because Hefe the ORC has so much weirdness and complexity that we stopped caring what arbitrary style it fits into long ago. It’s simply a delicious and fragrant beer, and we could not be happier with it.

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days, Tasting 1 Comment »

Holy crap, where did 2009 go? It feels like the year just began, and now it has come full circle.

Last January we made some brewing resolutions. I resolved to brew new styles, which we definitely accomplished: Dry Irish Stout, dry-hopped Dubbel, Kölsch, hybrid Pale Ale (the Bee Sting!), hybrid Belgian Hefe, Barleywine, IPA, Tripel and Oatmeal Stout. The only overlaps from 2008 would be the tripel (or Ginpel), which uses our original Tripel recipe, but adds classic gin aromatics.

We also kept to a fairly regular brew schedule, and essentially kicked fruit extract to the curb—simply because we didn’t brew with fruit this year, unless you count dried cranberries and raisins. Ray kept to his resolution of being adventurous—his recipe for Hefe the ORC was bold and playful, which came out in the beer’s flavor, aroma, and of course, its name.

In 2009 we went back to the Brandywine Craft Brewers’ Festival, glad to be back after missing it in 2008. We also attended the Philly Beer Fest at the Navy Yard, which was mammoth but good, and a Winterfest at Stoudts in late February. Hopefully in 2010 we’ll make it back to Savor, and possibly GABF for the first time.

Maybe most important, we got married in 2009. In a brewery. Stoudts Brewery to be exact. It’s pretty hard to top that, and we were told by a number of our guests that it was one of the best weddings they had been to. We loved the fact that we had over 11 beers on tap to choose from, including Smooth Hoperator, Stoudts’ Winter Ale (this year it was a hoppy red), Gold (a Munich-style Helles), Pils, Double IPA, Scarlet Lady (an ESB), a robust porter, Stoudt’s Pale Ale, Peppercorn Pumpkin Ale (aka Peppercornhole), Oktoberfest, and for our wedding toast: Old Fat Dog Imperial Oatmeal Stout (for me) and Stoudts’ Tripel (for Ray). Then we honeymooned in Denver, one of the other great beer cities in the US.

Also in November, I was selected to be the Philadelphia Homebrewing Examiner for Examiner.com. It’s an exciting experience that’s providing me with the tools and initiative to dig deeper into our local homebrewing community. Next stop: writing for the BA’s publications—someday, hopefully.

2009 has been great, but I’ve got a feeling that 2010 has a lot of great things pushed up its sleeves. Until then, Happy New Year!

Homebrewing, Miscellany 2 Comments »

I am a child of rock n’ roll. Not like, child of Led Zepplin groupies, but more like child of a dad that played Led Zepplin and other classic rock on the way to and from church Sunday mornings. How many 5-year-olds have a classic rock radio station bumper sticker on their bikes?

Months ago I was driving home from work and heard The Who’s “Boris the Spider” come on and I fell in love. I danced in the car, bouncing around to the music, probably looking like an idiot in traffic. I consider it one of my “happy songs.”

I knew I wanted to use the song as an inspiration point for a brew. Spiders tend to be black … I’d be brewing in the fall … I love oatmeal stouts in the colder months … I was introduced to chai in college by a close friend and the smell of the spiced tea makes me think of chilly autumn days in Western New York … spiders and stouts are black …

So there you have it. A wild stream of consciousness that brought me to this: Boris the Spider Chai Oatmeal Stout. I could totally see Pete Townshend drinking this.

20 September 2009
Boris the Spider Chai Oatmeal Stout
Extract w/ grains
5 gallons, 60 minute boil, 30 minute steep

6.0 lbs Light Liquid Malt Extract (60 min)
1.0 lb Dried Malt Extract (60 min)

Specialty Grains:
1.5 lbs Flaked Oats
9.00 oz Crystal 60L
8.00 oz Chocolate Malt
8.00 oz German Carafa II
4.00 oz Roasted Barley

1.00 oz Sterling Hops [7.0% AA] (60 min)
2.00 oz UK Kent Golding [4.2% AA] (60 min)
1.00 oz UK Kent Golding [4.2% AA] (5 min)

Custom cold-brewed chai tea with traditional spices (recipe to come)

1 tablet Whirlfloc (20 min – clarifier)

White Labs Irish Ale Yeast (WLP004)

4 oz corn sugar (bottling)

—

Create a yeast starter 2-3 days in advance.

Add 3 gallons of water to kettle. Bring to boil.

Steep grains at 155°F for 30 minutes.

Remove grains, turn off heat and add 1.0 lb dried malt extract and 6.0 lbs liquid malt extract. Bring to a boil. Add bittering hops.

At 20 minutes, add Whirlfloc tablet.

At 5 minutes, add remaining hops.

At end of boil, remove all hops. Chill wort to 75°F. Rack to fermenter and dilute to 5 gallons. Decant yeast starter and pitch yeast. Aerate thoroughly. Ferment at 70-75°F.

Rack fermented beer to secondary fermenter. Age for 1 – 2 weeks.

Rack to bottling bucket. Add cold-brewed chai tea strained of spices. Boil corn sugar with 1 c filtered water and add to beer. Mix well.

Bottle. Age for 2 – 3 weeks.

I’m still working on my chai recipe, but I can tell you that I will be mixing it myself. Chai is typically brewed with Indian Assam tea, but I didn’t have the best of luck finding this tea. So instead I picked up Twinings of London’s English Breakfast Tea, which is a blend of Kenyan and Assam. I have a wonderful stash of spices to work with, so I’m excited!

Homebrewing, Our Brew Days, Recipes 5 Comments »